The Edges of Your Love
by CitronPresse
Summary: -- Lexie’s in your senses, caught on the edges of love that 3 a.m. and a raised temperature are making you miss like hell. -- One shot set post 6.15; spoilers up to 6.14. Characters: Mark, Lexie, Arizona; Pairing: Mark/Lexie.


It's been raining for days now. Heavy, splashing, fat, wet rain that permeates everything. You hate it. It runs down your neck when you walk between the hospital and your apartment, and keeps you awake at night, driving home your mood and your state of health.

Your lungs feel tight, your throat rasps when you talk and grates when you swallow, and there's a headache constantly threatening behind your eyes. It reminds you of when you first came here: the rain, the walking pneumonia, the empty ache inside your chest.

(Apparently, rain is the backdrop whenever you miss out on being a dad and the woman you love kicks you in the teeth.)

"I like the rain," Arizona chirrups over her coffee cup, depressingly cheerful now that Callie spends less time with you again and more time with her.

"You would," you say. You miss Callie coming over at night: it made it all kind of bearable for a few hours.

"You know what?" she offers, giving your morose response the total non-attention it probably deserves. "You need a hobby."

"Yeah, that oughta do it. How about stamp collecting?" You ignore her when she rolls her eyes. You feel like whining, and her particular brand of seafarer-raised, blue-eyed blonde, glass-half-full crap isn't what you need right now.

But later, when a nurse deliberately lets her hand linger against your arm, you wonder if she could've been on to something. You're pretty sure it's not what Arizona had in mind. But you sort of had a hobby once. One you'd practiced for years. Maybe you should take it up again.

After all, you tried the good reasons for not being a whore, and they all broke your heart.

* * *

You wake up coughing, with a sore throat and the beginnings of a fever and, for a moment, you forget where you are.

Warm, soft flesh lies alongside yours; there's a hand against your leg; the sound of someone breathing through a dream. You try to mute the cough, swallowing it behind your hand, torn between not wanting to wake her and wishing she would, because she has all these ways of comforting you without really trying, like it's second nature, and being sick would feel okay with her fingers lightly in your hair and her head on your shoulder.

Then she moans, in the wrong voice, and the illusion shatters.

It's not her.

Sandra. (Because you remember their names, these days. You're a little out of practice at how this hobby works.) Sandra, the pretty scrub nurse, who likes to be on top.

You don't sneak out anymore. You wait until the morning, smile, say 'Hey' and drink coffee; talk about the shitty weather while a polite interval elapses so it doesn't seem too much like rejection. But this time you roll on your side, inch away from her until you can't feel the intrusion of her skin, her hand, her breath.

Lexie's in your senses, caught on the edges of love that 3 a.m. and a raised temperature are making you miss like hell. You want her to hold you; you want to tell her about Sloan and the baby and have her understand how much it all hurts.

At 7 a.m., you'll tell yourself (and even believe it) you don't want her; can't forgive her; all the bullshit that makes your day seem simpler. But now you need to curl your body around the memories your mistake made you long for, and pretend she's there while you sleep.

* * *

A coughing fit consumes you as you make the herbal tea you can't stand but seems to help.

The door to the attendings' lounge is open and a nurse pokes her head inside. "Are you okay?" she asks, as her eyes stray appreciatively from your face to your chest to your biceps. She's new, you think. At least, you've never worked with her (or slept with her).

You nod, croak out a "Yeah," then smile. She's tall, brunette, long legs and taut body apparent even under the scrubs. "I don't believe I've had the pleasure . . ." you begin, but then the words kind of collapse into a sigh you can't help making.

You're not in the mood. You're tired and you feel like crap, and right now stamp collecting seems like it might just have the edge over collecting women.

"Mark Sloan, Head of Plastics," you say, in the brisk voice you use to get rid of lesser doctors, and hold out your hand to shake hers.

When she leaves, you slump into a chair, sip the disgusting tea, and find it very hard to tell yourself you don't want Lexie. (You'd probably forgive her anything if she was sitting, just _sitting_ next to you, resting her hand on your leg.)

"Your advice sucks," you bitch at Arizona when she comes in to get coffee.

"My advice is awesome," she says. "Maybe" she points at you with her coffee stirrer, "_you_ suck!"

"Well, that would seem to be the consensus," you say dismally.

The coffee stirrer flies through the air, only missing your head because it's too light to make it that far. "You know what?" she says. "Yes, it sucks. What Sloan did to you? It sucks. But you," she inhales, "you need to get over yourself. I know you wanted a family. I get that. And I know it hurts. But Lexie didn't do that. Lexie left you to make a point. She left you because she thought she was important to you and -"

"I thought I was important to _her_," you counter. "Until she dumped me. Until she slept with -"

"Shut up! I'm talking now. I earned the right when you slept in my bed with me and my girlfriend."

A cough percolates through your throat and you exaggerate it a little, hoping for sympathy, but all she does is wait until you're finished, tapping her foot irritably.

"Maybe it hurts because it meant something. Maybe feelings like that are too good to throw away. Maybe you, of all people, ought to get why a person has meaningless sex."

You raise an eyebrow. "To get off?" you suggest, playing defensively dumb.

"Seriously?" she says, exasperated, then takes a patient breath and perches on the seat next to yours. "You're not done with her. And if you think you're hiding that from anyone but Lexie, you're kidding yourself. I mean," she waves a hand in your direction, "just look at you."

You look into her bright blue eyes, trying to make her understand (although, really, you're just fighting a last ditch battle with yourself). "I was this close to having a family." You hold your thumb and forefinger up, with barely any space between them. "This fucking close and it all got taken away. Again."

"I know," she says softly. "But -"

"And I have a cold. And it never stops raining. And I'm miserable." And all of that would matter less if you still had Lexie; if it was really _her_ in the bed beside you when you woke up at 3 a.m. "And you want to know why your advice sucks? Because meaningless sex doesn't fucking work anymore."

"Then you know what you have to do," she says, perky on the surface and granite underneath, then gets up and walks towards the door. "And just so we're clear? My advice is awesome."

* * *

She's leaning on the nurses' station counter, absorbed in a chart. The blonde hair is hard to get used to (the last time you touched her she was brunette, and that's what steals through your dreams) but, if you're honest, it's kind of hot.

You clear your throat, hoping for subtlety, but inevitably, life being the bitch that it is, it turns into a wracking cough that startles her and spoils the whole effect.

"You should go home and get some rest," she says, almost indifferent. But the second nature thing works its way into her words.

You not sure if that breaks your heart a little more, or warms it the way it did in your memories. Both probably. And, either way, it robs you of whatever poise you had left after the coughing fit. "Here." You push the cup of coffee you bought for her along the counter.

She looks at it, then at your face, then back at the cup and finally picks it up and takes a sip. It's enough for you to find the next few words.

"I'm sorry." It's hard, but you mean it. "I got all caught up and . . ." You forgot her love was good enough to make a little pain worth it; you forgot, when you were struggling desperately for blood family, you already had a home with her. You can't say that, though; not here, not now. So you swallow and mumble, "What I said about your hair before? It's not so bad."

There's a pause, she takes another sip of coffee, then says, "Thank you," indeterminate. "I have . . ." she points with her pen at the chart in front of her and shrugs awkwardly, "you know."

"Yeah. Me too." You try to smile. Now that you've taken the leap, you kind of wanted more out of this. But this is probably good for a first step.

(And even if it's the _only_ step, even if you pushed her too far and there's no coming back from that, the ache in your chest feels a little less empty.)

* * *

You fall asleep in front of the TV, dosed up with scotch and a Nyquil chaser, buried in comfortably fuzzy regret.

You dream about her. Vividly. Rolling over on top of you to make early morning love. And when the doorbell rings and wrenches you away from her, it's like a physical pain.

Except it's her. The two states colliding as you blink your way out of one and into the other.

"Hey." She holds up a grocery bag. "I brought oranges. For freshly squeezed juice. And Vitamin C. I thought . . . well, I thought -" She shoves the bag into your arms, only just betraying that she's waiting for a reaction.

All that's on your mind, though, is 'I love you.' It's the last thing you said in your dream. But since you never said it to her the whole time you were together (why the hell not, you have no idea), now doesn't seem like a good time.

"I should go," she says, embarrassed, and you finally get it together enough to crack the door open wider and say,

"You want to come in?"

She hesitates so long, you assume she's working up the courage to say, 'No.' But instead, she says. "I lied. I said 'I thought,' but I didn't. Arizona did. Arizona told me to come over, when I told her you brought me coffee." She shrugs. "She says she gives awesome advice. And I guess I needed some awesome advice. Because I sort of hate you." She swallows. "But I sort of hate being without you more."

* * *

"I'm sorry Sloan left. I'm sorry about the baby. I know how much you -"

"Yeah," you say softly. Because you were right: it matters a little bit less with Lexie here.

"My hair's not so bad, huh?" she asks, settling onto the end of the couch that's not covered in rumpled blankets. "Even though I'm not 'fun' or 'badass?'"

You swallow, risk taking her hand and playing lightly with her fingers. "Your hair's great. You're great. I just . . ." you don't know how to say it, so you just tell her how it felt, "I got lost for a while."

When you wake up later, coughing, she's curled up against you, dozing with her hand in yours. She stirs, murmurs a sleepily concerned, 'Hey,' and brushes your face with her fingertips.

It's the couch, not the bed; and it's the material of her jeans you feel pressed against you, not her soft flesh lying alongside yours. But she's warm; the soft, dreamy noises against your shoulder are all her; you don't need to pretend or wrap up in memories; and when the rain drums against the windows, you don't hate it quite so much.

It's fragile, still just the edges of love. But, yeah, it's worth a little pain and, if your heart was broken, that only helps you love her more.


End file.
